The Wyoming Stock Growers Association and others have indicated they will file briefs with the U.S. Supreme Court as Elk Mountain Ranch owner Fred Eshelman petitions justices to review his lower-court loss in the corner-crossing conflict.
Along with the stock growers, the Wyoming Wool Growers Association and the Montana Stockgrowers Association will file amicus briefs with the nation’s high court, Stock Growers Executive Vice President Jim Magagna said Thursday. United Property Owners of Montana also notified Ryan Semerad, an attorney for the appellees, that it intends to file a brief, Semerad said Thursday.
Stock growers will urge the court to take up the case, Magagna said. “Until the Supreme Court issues a decision, there’s going to always be uncertainty,” he said.
The stock growers’ brief won’t argue one side or the other, Magagna said. “That wouldn’t be appropriate.”
“At least we’ll know where we stand,”
Jim Magagna
Semerad, a Casper attorney, represents four Missouri hunters whom Eshelman sued for trespassing after they corner crossed to hunt on public land in Carbon County in 2020 and 2021. The men stepped from one piece of public land to another — without setting foot on Eshelman’s land — in a landscape where ownership is a checkerboard pattern of mile-square parcels of alternating public and private property.
The case has implications for public access to 2.4 million acres of public land in Wyoming and 8.3 million acres nationwide and for landowners who have operated under the assumption that corner crossing is trespassing. Eshelman contends corner crossers trespass — even if they don’t set foot on his land — when they cross through the airspace above his property.
Eshelman wants the courts to declare corner crossing an illegal trespass. Blocking corner crossing allows landowners like Eshelman to essentially control public lands enmeshed in their holdings, his critics say.
One rule for all
Stock growers will be “pointing out to [the court] that the impact of this decision is not just on one landowner but potentially on landowners throughout Wyoming and throughout the West,” Magagna said.
Regardless of the outcome, “at least we’ll know where we stand,” he said. With a Supreme Court ruling, “across the West we’re all living under the same criteria.”
Amicus briefs are due Aug. 18, Semerad said, which also is the deadline for the hunters’ response to Eshelman’s petition for Supreme Court review. The U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the hunters earlier this year, prompting Eshelman to take his trespass suit to the nation’s top court.
This week, Semerad also asked the court to give him another 30 days to respond to Eshelman’s petition. An extension would, among other things, give the hunters “sufficient time to review and address the points raised in the petition as well as any amicus briefs supporting the petition,” according to Semerad’s request.
While attorneys, landowners, ranchers, hunters and public land advocates face looming filing deadlines, Wyoming legislators this week unveiled a draft bill that would clarify corner crossing as a legal activity.
The Joint Travel, Recreation, Wildlife and Cultural Resources Interim Committee proposes sponsoring “Corner crossing clarification” and will consider the draft in Casper on Aug. 19. Similar bills have failed in the Legislature this year and in years past.
The bill states that a person “does not commit criminal trespass if the person is traveling from one parcel of land owned by a local government, the state of Wyoming or the federal government that the person is authorized to access to another [similar] parcel … at the corner where the two parcels meet and without causing damage to any privately owned land adjacent to the two parcels.”
Some lawmakers and law enforcement officials have asked that the 10th Circuit’s long and complex ruling be simply explained and codified.
“It’s important we codify that the people of Wyoming have the right to access their public lands,” Rep. Karlee Provenza, D-Laramie, said when she co-sponsored a similar, but unsuccessful, bill earlier this year.
A bill would make it clear that checkerboard landowners cannot turn public land into “their private playground,” Provenza said earlier this year. She called that de facto privatization, which occurs when corner crossing is blocked, “wrong and dishonest.”
Earlier this year, she also poo pooed notions that the Legislature should wait until Eshelman’s lawsuit runs its course.
“I’m not one to sit by and hope the Supreme Court makes the right decision when we know people’s rights are on the line,” she said.
Ag groups supported Eshelman
If the Supreme Court agrees to hear Eshelman’s appeal, stock growers will consider whether to file another brief that takes a stand on the issue, Magagna said. The group, wool growers and Montana landowners have sided with Eshelman in the past.
The hunters also have outside support. Backcountry Hunters & Anglers, a group that raised money to defend hunters Brad Cape, Phillip Yeomans, John Slowensky and Zachary Smith in a criminal trial and Eshelman’s civil suit, supported the four with legal arguments in the past. Great Old Broads For Wilderness, GreenLatinos, Sierra Club and Western Watersheds Project also filed amicus briefs in the legal saga.
The Wyoming Stock Growers and Wyoming Wool Growers last spoke up in the 10th Circuit when Eshelman appealed a defeat handed down in 2023 by the U.S. District Court for Wyoming.
“This case is also not just about ‘innocent’ hunters just enjoying the wildlife in Wyoming, but the district court’s ruling allows any member of the public, regardless of their intentions, to trespass on private lands, or in private airspace,” Karen Budd-Falen wrote in an amicus brief. “Congress created the checkerboard system that has created this case today, and it should be up to Congress to fix it.”
United Property Owners of Montana also supported Eshelman in the 10th Circuit, even though that state is not one of the six under the court’s jurisdiction. (Parts of Yellowstone National Park in Montana do fall under 10th Circuit oversight.)
Allowing corner crossing “will upset settled expectations of landowners across the west to accommodate some ill-defined right to corner cross,” the Montana group argued. Accessing public land via corner crossing is poor public policy, will occur without public planning and deprives landowners of “the right to receive compensation for providing public access,” the Montana group said in legal papers.
The group said principles of the 1885 Unlawful Inclosures Act, which generally bars checkerboard landowners from blocking public access to public land, faded with the 1934 closing of the open range in the West. The 10th Circuit found the act to be relevant and alive.
But Montana landowners said tying recreation to an ag measure amounted to fitting “a square peg in a round hole.”
No double standards
If a landowner wishes to keep someone from encroaching even “an inch” over his or her property while that person corner crosses from public land to public land, then that landowner shouldn’t have any fencing or other property that encroaches even “an inch” onto public land. Further, that landowner shouldn’t have any fencing (or chains) that corner crosses from private land to private land. At a minimum, the corner crosser shouldn’t be held to a higher standard than the standard that the landowner is living in relation to neighboring public lands.
Why don’t they create a trail which is public access to these Public lands? imminent domain on this FN Billionaire.
All hunters and wildlife enthusiast should be concerned about the ranchers siding with this land owners that wants to control who has access to public land while they can access it and HUNT at anytime . I guess the ranches want to claim access to public land as their right but, not ours right. Pubic land belongs to us and this is a great case for eminent control over very small pieces of private land so we can access our public land.
So corner crossing deprives landowners of “the right to receive compensation for public access?” Say what? Maybe the public should be receiving market value compensation from landowners for the right of exclusive use.
Corner Crossing in no way prevents any Stockgrowers Association or any beef producer from long-established access to and continued grazing rights on leased BLM land.
The only thing this Decision has done is taken away just a little bit of the rampant Welfare Ranching that has existed in the West for many decades and, actually, it doesn’t even take any of that away. Their BLM lease or grazing permit will still be offered for a fraction of what private leases cost, it will still be business as usual.
This effort can best be summarized in a manner any stock producer is long familiar with…no critter likes to share a teat, especially when that teat is the federal government.
Not to worry. Previous articles have disclosed that SCOTUS only accepts about one case out of 100 they are asked to hear. And, the 1880s Enclosure Act is simple but its intent is very, very clear. This isn’t going anywhere
If the landowners prevail, it is like basically they get the public land for free or around 10 cents on the dollar compared to deeded land. The deeded landowners say it will decrease the value of their land, which means they are profiting from the public land, but we as the general public cannot.
Isnt it something that everytime there is a chance to gouge the taxpayers, the montana land owners want a payday. Access fee? Taxpayers pay everytime there is a drowth because the ranchers run to many head for the land they have, and any little weather event we are supposed to pony up for some farm/rancher welfare disaster relief bill. Now they want a access fee. Maybe its time to just do like North Dakota and put sectionline and quarter line access in so rich people can not block access to our property to force a sale at below market value. Maybe its time for a bill to let the highest bidder get the right to rent anyl federal govt land and raise the minimum bid to a fair market value too. Not the $1.75/ cow/calf pair. what a joke and slap in the face to our public lands. Better yet, lets get the envasive species off the public lands period. States would make way more money if there was wildlife and hunting tags available then to keep funding these welfare handouts to people who think they are entitled to the public land too. If we have to pay for a farm bill, access should be tied to the private land, or dont sign up for the taxpayer funded farm welfare bill. If the Farmer/rancher dont like it , don t take our money and dont sign up for the farm bill. The public land is overgrazed all the time, no one gets in trouble for it either. We could all have a family farm too if we didnt have to pay for all the people who did nothing but inherit theirs.
many good points, the only thing you got wrong is the grazing rate. Its actually only 1.35 per AUM.
Eshelman hasn’t won, he’s lost: 2 times. Right now, as we speak, Corner Crossing is 100% legal. He’ll be lucky if SCOTUS even hears this last minute rush to the toilet
Here’s an idea. Require a 5 foot wide marked passage way to the public lands.
If not the nasty and wealthy land owners will say “they stepped on my precious 1 sq foot of land. They just didn’t step over it. They violated my rights. They should be arrested
I was born in Wyoming and enjoyed public land for a long time, I hunted a fished and nobody cared if you did a corner crossing. The only one that seems to worry about it is a billionaire who’s not from Wyoming
I feel that the state legislature should pass a bill
Wyoming worships ranchers, and this is how they return the favor. This is not an isolated incident and they have a huge desire to possess public lands and keep us out.
The case is about the rich vs ordinary citizens and Wyoming consistently supports the party of the rich. Maybe why Eshelman bought the giant ranch there to begin with The case isn’t really about trespassing , it’s about trespassing in a weird way to hunt animals on someone else’s land, no?
In all fairness, it’s not just Wyoming that supports the rich versus ordinary citizens. Just examine what our Federal administration has been doing since Jan 6. Personally, I’m tired of hearing about corner crossing. I’m tired of people thinking that they should have a “5 foot wide” easement across private property to gain access. I’m tired of people thinking that they should be allowed to drive across private land in order to take a motorized vehicle into public land. This whole issue has become overblown, thanks to one landowner. People, there are a lot more private property owners that willingly work with individuals that want access if they just have the courtesy to ask first. This isn’t and should never have been a “we versus them” issue.
As a side note: people please pay attention. CSD News has an article about the Pathfinder ranch that is now listed at 79.5 million $$ for what’s listed as ~916,000 acres. Now here’s what you need to pay attention to; actual deeded property is only 99,188 acres, the rest of the ranch is state or BLM leased acreage. The Pathfinder Ranch is allowed to sell the leased acreage as if it is privately owned. Generally I don’t have a huge problem with the concept, until you start factoring in property taxes. If we allow ranchers to sell public land leases as part of an ongoing concern, then by golly I think that these same ranchers should have to be paying a “value added” tax basis for these leases. Certainly the leased acreage is reflected in the sale price.
It’s comical to think that certain entities still feel as if they have total control over publicly owned lands. Here we have Magana and Fallen./Budd, still spouting off the same nonsense. Magana seems to have a enough brain cells to know that it’s over for the blm checker board freeloaders with their monopoly on these lands and the unlimited outfitting and 1930’s grazing fee rates but Fallen/Budd’s gonna keep hissing like a snake in the grass with those dreaded ‘trespass’ sky is falling routine. We’d expect nothing less from this Karen
Is there anyone out there who believes that Jim Magagna is not taking sides on this? That statement gave me a belly laugh!
Magagna is a leech.
Of course the stock growers joined, nothing more American than keeping people off public land so private land owners are the only ones enjoying the people’s land.
Interesting, this will open the US GOVERNMENT to an old closet full of bones that fell out when the Navajo Nation and I believe others as well sued the US GOVERNMENT about “treaty” violations, etc. after the “Black Hills Gold” incident/rush was over and that was a VERY expensive suit. SO I’m hopeful the “hunters” look into that suit try it on for size and see if it fits. SEMPER FI!
Whew, with all of our GOP “rugged individualist – live and let live types” it’s taken a Democrat to cut through the shit and propose legislation that defines corner cross as legal. And it looks like Karen Falen-Budd is back to her lies about trespassing. Say, when you’re camping up in the Bighorns and the banks of the North Tongue river are pummeled down to nothing but mud and cowpies by the 100’s of cows running the riparian area, just remember that when a cow and her big fat calf come marching right through your camp site shitting everywhere, you can thank welfare cowboy headmaster Jim Magagna that each pair of bovine cow-calves is being charged a huge fee of 4 and a half cents PER DAY to trample over YOUR public lands. The Budd-Falen’s and the Magagna types don’t just want you off checkerboard public lands, they want you off ALL of it. $00.045 a day, folks
Well done Mr. Thuermer. This may be the first corner crossing article that doesn’t refer to Mr. Eshelman as “millionaire Fred Eshelman” or “multi-millionaire Fred Eshelman” or “wealthy pharmaceutical magnate Fred Eshelman”. I was beginning to think Millionaire was his first name. Mr. Eshelman is wrong on corner crossing but his financial status should not be a consideration. Every large rancher in the state probably has a million dollar net worth and is hoping Fred wins.
So, we all know where the grifting stock growers stand.They’ve been soaking up public money since statehood, and they want to keep the public off of PUBLIC land. Keep that In mind folks. Their very livelihood depends on us-our tax dollars.